Constitution Day: Why the Indian Constitution guarantees secularism, and what it implies

Editor’s Note: The following was originally published on 10 February. It is being republished on the occasion of India’s Constitution Day — the day in 1949 on which the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India. The words of the Preamble to the Indian Constitution, like the National Anthem, come easily to our lips. “We, the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic, and to secure to all its citizens: Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; Equality of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all Fraternity, assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; In our Constituent Assembly this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this Constitution.” And yet, glibly though we pronounce these words, few among us have dwelt on and fully understood their meaning. A lecture series organised by the IIT-Bombay for Justice group between 16-26 January 2020 attempts to address just this gap. Even as the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India has shown up the fault lines amid the people of this country, IIT-Bombay for Justice’s Preamble lecture series endeavours to go back to the basics; to examine what it means to be a “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic”, to reaffirm the ideals enshrined in the Constitution — justice, liberty, equality, fraternity — that Indians must hold on to, more than ever in these fractured times. More from the series, here . *** In lecture 4, IIT-B’s Pramod Mandade (PhD candidate, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences) and Samarth Bhagwat (Master’s student at Industrial Design Centre) discuss secularism. Watch it here: